The news that the Breaking Dawn birth scene has been cut ties in to some of her "How are they going to get away with putting this on screen?!" comments in the recap of that book. Aside from the birth scene, it seems like there's...rather a lot of sex in BD.

I have a question now that I know more about the plot of Breaking Dawn, though it's been nagging ever since I read New Moon In Fifteen Minutes: why do the main charcters let the Volturi live? From the descriptions, it seems like:

1) The Volturi are clearly evil, chowing down on groups of tourists, killing any vampire who crosses them, etc.2) The 'good guys' have the resources to beat them or at least take them on at the end of BD, yet when they decide not to kill loli-Sue Renesmee they're allowed to leave. Aren't there any vampires who want to overthrow or just get rid of them?

1) The Volturi are clearly evil, chowing down on groups of tourists, killing any vampire who crosses them, etc.2) The 'good guys' have the resources to beat them or at least take them on at the end of BD, yet when they decide not to kill loli-Sue Renesmee they're allowed to leave. Aren't there any vampires who want to overthrow or just get rid of them?

SMeyer is a horrible writer. The Volturi are only a plot device she can use to throw a complication in the way of Bella and Edward's tru wub, she has said she wants to revisit the Twilight-verse, maybe from other characters' POVs so she needs her "threat" to be there because otherwise the books are just talking, talking, Bella whining, and Meyer comparing herself to Shakespeare, the Bronte sisters and Jane Austen with a lot of glitter and abuse of the word "chagrin"

Rabid BadgerAnd This is Why I Need Medication

Join date : 2009-06-10

Subject: Re: Twilight: The Death of Feminism Wed Jun 30, 2010 7:28 pm

You know, I'd wondered how they were going to pull the birth off, given the audience the movie is slanted towards. And they'll have to figure out some way to downplay the sex.

Though part of me's disappointed they're cutting out the birth scene. While I'd never see the movie, I'd like to see the film clips of little Reseeme chewing her way out of her mother's womb.

theweirdkindBastion of Sanity

Join date : 2009-06-03Age : 27Location : The Land of Strangeness

Subject: Re: Twilight: The Death of Feminism Wed Jun 30, 2010 9:43 pm

Rabid Badger wrote:

Though part of me's disappointed they're cutting out the birth scene. While I'd never see the movie, I'd like to see the film clips of little Reseeme chewing her way out of her mother's womb.

I'm really disappointed about that part. I was probably going to rent the damn movie or find that clip online, because that part would be so fucking awesome. It would bring me pleasure to see Bella's spine snap as demon spawnMary Sue Renesmee tried to chew her way out of her mother's womb, while Edward tore it open with his teeth.

TrioculusSporkbender

Join date : 2009-06-11Location : State of Utter Confusion

Subject: Re: Twilight: The Death of Feminism Thu Jul 01, 2010 4:50 pm

Well, of course. They take out the sex scenes and the birth of the Demon Hellspawn Mary Sue Baby, because those are the only things that might make those two movies (two fucking movies?!) anywhere near vaguely interesting.

As far as the movie out right now goes, even the Slate reviewer has, unfortunately, gone over to the dark side

The common object of Edward's and Jacob's passion, Bella Swan (Kristen Stewart), is indeed passive and blank, a transparent proxy for the audience. This episode takes Bella's passivity to new heights, with one plot contrivance requiring her to literally be carried from place to place by Jacob.

So far so good, but...

Quote :

But to argue that this passivity makes Bella a weak character or a bad role model for young girls is to misapprehend the function of the Twilight universe. What Twilight has to offer its fans is not the wholesome noonday sun of feminism but the sick, weird moonlight of actual desire.

Well, okay, yeah, there's something "sick" and "weird" about the popularity of this property.

Quote :

Far from being a powerless cipher, Bella Swan now occupies a position at the center of Twilight's complex cosmology.

No, she's at the center of the not-so-complex cosmology AND still a powerless cipher.

Quote :

"It's not a choice between the two of you," Bella tells Edward at a key point in the story. "It's a choice between who I should be and who I am." If my Twilight decoder amulet is still working, that means that our heroine is torn between the warm, mortal, animal love she feels for Jacob and the cold, eternal, sexless-but-therefore-sexy sublimity of her bond with Edward. But this line of dialogue has another possible interpretation, one that (like the whole series) puts the audience in Bella's place. The choice of whether to see Eclipse isn't really a question of whether the movie is good or bad. (By any objective, thumbs-up or thumbs-down standard of aesthetic judgment, this installment, directed by David Slade, is in keeping with the previous two films: a competently made bit of Gothic schlock.) It's a question of whether or not the movie speaks to your secret, unregulated, inherently ridiculous experience of identification and desire—not who you should be, but who you are. Does the warm blood of a teenager still flow beneath your icy grown-up flesh?

So if they're taking out the birth scene and presumably many of the sex scenes as well... just what the hell does that leave us with?

All the "Bella is the most awesomest vampire EVAR" scenes and the "deliriously happily married" scenes, I presume

I'm sure the hunting in high heels and a cocktail dress will show up, too.

Tungsten MonkSporkbender

Join date : 2009-06-11Age : 30Location : Cedar Rapids, IA

Subject: Re: Twilight: The Death of Feminism Fri Jul 02, 2010 8:38 pm

Rabid Badger wrote:

Though I will give Russ props; he absolutely HATES the series, but he still goes to see them. That, my friends, is true love. Or absolute stupidity. I'm not sure which.

Or possibly just plain ol' coercion. :D

Sadly, Twilight is everywhere. As a matter of fact, I was woken up this morning by a phone call from my brother--not gaijinguy, but the other older brother. Let's call him Disaster Guy: he served two tours in Iraq, one with the USMC and one with the Army, and is currently a diver on site near the Gulf oil spill, so it's a good name for him. When I picked up the phone, he sounded awful.

"Tungsten, I did something really bad last night," he said. Cue panic time: he used to drink too much sometimes, so did he have a relapse? Get in a fight? In to sounding upset, he seemed a bit confused. Oh God, oh God, did he get a concussion or something? Should I call Mom?

"I saw that new Twilight movie," he added.

The poor guy. Apparently, some buddies were being dragged there by their girlfriends, and they talked him into coming along as a safety measure. (They were some of the only men in the theatre.) Honestly, it seemed like something his brain just couldn't process. Disaster Guy is smart as hell, and has me beat by a mile in reading the classics. He educates himself with a library card. But Twilight--especially the Eclipse movie--confused the hell out of him, and I had to spend thirty minutes explaining why exactly the characters were acting brain-damaged and why in God's name this monstrosity was a national phenomenon.

FYI, Disaster Guy would be on Team Jacob. He thought Edward was a stalker and wanted to know if one of the plot-points was that Bella was an alien devoid of emotion. Actually, he would be on Team Jacob Get the Hell Out of This Movie.

So yeah. There seems to be no section of society that's currently safe from it. And now that they've removed the only interesting thing from Breaking Dawn, there won't even be a gore-splattered IT'S ALIIIIIVE! scene to lift the tedium of Sparkly True Love.

By the way, is anybody else wondering how in hell they're gonna get TWO movies out of Breaking Dawn? That thing has like zero plot. They get married, have (pillow-biting) sex, Bella gets knocked up while werewolves run around in the woods, evisceration C-section (good band name!), Volturi shows up and people posture for a bit, anticlimactic climax, end scene. That's a pretty thin plot arc, and you sure as hell can't break it in half without stuffing in a whole lot of other junk. Where would they make the cut, anyway?

ZoZoKnight of the Bleach

Join date : 2009-06-10Age : 32Location : In WD40's head

Subject: Re: Twilight: The Death of Feminism Sat Jul 03, 2010 5:53 am

Recently, a girl I fancy said she liked Twilight and wanted to go and see the next one.

I decided not to pursue her after that. There's clearly something spectacularly wrong with her.

DeutschtardSporkbender

Join date : 2009-06-10

Subject: Re: Twilight: The Death of Feminism Sat Jul 03, 2010 8:28 pm

PendragonGirl wrote:

Keith Fraser wrote:

1) The Volturi are clearly evil, chowing down on groups of tourists, killing any vampire who crosses them, etc.2) The 'good guys' have the resources to beat them or at least take them on at the end of BD, yet when they decide not to kill loli-Sue Renesmee they're allowed to leave. Aren't there any vampires who want to overthrow or just get rid of them?

SMeyer is a horrible writer. The Volturi are only a plot device she can use to throw a complication in the way of Bella and Edward's tru wub, she has said she wants to revisit the Twilight-verse, maybe from other characters' POVs so she needs her "threat" to be there because otherwise the books are just talking, talking, Bella whining, and Meyer comparing herself to Shakespeare, the Bronte sisters and Jane Austen with a lot of glitter and abuse of the word "chagrin"

BTW, the Volturi weren't even her idea, the second book was going to be way more stupid. Her sister came up with the Voulturi idea.

Last edited by Deutschtard on Sun Jul 04, 2010 8:09 pm; edited 1 time in total

Chris91Knight of the Bleach

Join date : 2009-06-13Age : 50Location : Salem, Mass., USA

Subject: Re: Twilight: The Death of Feminism Sun Jul 04, 2010 2:52 pm

ZoZo wrote:

Recently, a girl I fancy said she liked Twilight and wanted to go and see the next one.

I decided not to pursue her after that. There's clearly something spectacularly wrong with her.

I saw the latest movie. (I had a free-ticket voucher, so I didn't pay :])

Um, guys, it wasn't... itwasn'tthatbad. In fact, there were certain scenes I felt were kind of awesome.

don'tkillme

Actually this doesn't surprise me... I actually don't hate the first twilight movie. Don't get me wrong, I don't like it, but there's nothing really wrong or bad with it. (In fact, I maintain that with the right mindset, Twilight the movie is an extremely subtle and clever parody of itself)

So far as awesomeness goes... Someone I know now uses the phrase "The vampires are playing baseball" as a substitute for "jumped the shark". And I don't blame him.

DeutschtardSporkbender

Join date : 2009-06-10

Subject: Re: Twilight: The Death of Feminism Mon Jul 05, 2010 4:04 pm

It's okay Inky, just remember that any of the actual fighting in the movie? Was not there in the book. And honestly, of the four(five -groan-) movies, this would be the only one i halfway wanted to see. Thank god the producers did something with the dreck that's laughingly called 'source material'.

Keith FraserShitgobbling pissdrinker

Join date : 2009-06-11Age : 35Location : The Emerald Isle

Subject: Re: Twilight: The Death of Feminism Mon Jul 05, 2010 5:24 pm

Eclipse is the book where the evil chick from the first two raises an army of vampires and the "good guys" have an actual battle with them, yes? Got to be an improvement on nonstop angsting and whining.